And taking a play from the Obama inauguration playbook, the NBA.com video feed will be integrated with Facebook:

That supplemental game footage — dubbed TNT OverTime Extra — will also be available on NBA.com for the second straight year. But this time around, TNT has attempted to improved the online viewing experience by partnering with Facebook to integrate the social networking site’s “status update” tool with the clips.

This is how media should be – distributed, augmented and social.

It’s an approach I happen to like, and I think its very well-suited for an online strategy:

• Short and to the point – easy to consume during the work-day.
• Compelling visual storytelling
• Built to be shared – each video gives the full pitch in just a few minutes, and then provides a call to action or web site for more information.

That said, any idea why this approach seems to be all the rage right now? And are there others in this design genre that should be added to the list? I would also add some of the spots from GOOD Magazine, but it doesn’t look like their videos can be embedded.

UPDATE

And thanks to @beautifulthangs for the reminder of the video I had blogged about earlier for the Declaration of Human Rights:

Each episode so far is under five minutes – perfect for lunch-time enjoyment at the office – and features a sardonic Mayne more or less going behind the scenes at SportsCenter. AdAge reports:

Between “SportsCenter” clips, web-only shows devoted to mixed martial arts and more, ESPN.com averages between 120 million and 130 million video views per month. It streams a handful of original series — “The Rookie,” which chronicles Michael Beasley’s inaugural NBA season, and the weekly college-football travelogue “Road Trip” — as well as unaired content from news programming such as “E:60″ and “Outside the Lines.” Yet when it comes to original scripted web fare, the venerable ESPN.com has been beaten to the punch by any number of media upstarts.

The ESPN Video web site is fairly well-done, allowing viewers to comment and rate each web episode, as well as embed online. Although, the site could use a redesign. I’d rather see a cleaner user interface more similar to Hulu.com or even MTVMusic.com (essentially a Hulu-knockoff).

PSFK writes about What Kind of World Do You Want, a site that raises funds for: Augie’s Quest, Autism Speaks, Fisher House Foundation, Save the Children and Operation Homefront.

Organizations and viewers can upload their own videos (which are linked to the site’s charities) that explain what kind of change they want to see in the world. After viewing these calls to action, site visitors can donate money to the specific charity of their choice. The site was started by musician John Ondrasik, and has raised over $220,405 to date. Although the site could use an easier to use design, the idea is great. The videos give a face to charities in need, which could really help spur donations.

UPDATE – Similarly, YouTube has created their In My Name channel, dedicated to raising awareness around the United Nations Millenium Development Goals.

Well, EA Sports is back, with a response to Levi’s video clip:

Covering this exchange between Levi and EA Sports, AdAge writes:

Steve Rubel, author of the Micropersuasion blog, called it “brilliant marketing,” while gaming site Kotaku associate editor Adam Barenblat wrote he was speechless over what “might be one of the greatest and most controversial EA Sports viral-marketing videos ever.”

It’s a bold move, but kudos to EA Sports for having the courage to have fun and see an opportunity to display a little personality. And even though Joseph Jaffe questions that it did in fact take EA Sports 11 months to pull this spot together, it’s the kind of creative marketing we’ll see more of as dialogue between brands and consumers continues to grow.

“It’s a reminder that all brands have the opportunity to tell much big stories because the media bandwidth available to do so is that much bigger and costs nothing. Although, these videos currently follow a pretty straight formula, it’s like that we will see a lot more creativity being introduced into this area in the future.

It’s same to assume that in the near future, these brand stories will have as much creative importance as advertising does today. Whether advertising agencies will step up to take on this role, remains to be seen. If they don’t PR companies and in-house creative departments will take this over.”

Via AdPulp

Matt Harding decided to quit his job and travel the world where he began shooting videos of himself doing a little dance in front of monuments. He started a website called “Where the Hell is Matt” and became famous thanks to his videos. This is his 2008 video and is a compilation of 42 countries, and is surprisingly gorgeous and moving. It shows joy, harmony, and somehow exemplifies a true appreciation for the beauty and diversity of each culture. Additionally, it is dubbed by a song entitled “Praan” which was written just for this video, and I think is beautiful and absolutely perfect for this video. You can buy it at the Amazon mp3 store.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Fred Wilson writes: “You cannot be a destination exclusively on the Internet anymore.”

Hopefully YouTube will also be able to successfully monetize increased distribution in new ways, and encourage other content owners that focusing on distributed content not only builds brand awareness, but is also profitable.

[UPDATE]

In addition to increasing content’s distribution online, it needs to go hand-in-hand with being available on multiple platforms. Disney president and CEO Bob Iger said just as much at the McGraw Hill Media Summit:

“Brand managers look at technology with a deep-rooted aversion,” he said. “People take a protectionist view of it, but we’re projecting the brand versus protecting the brand.”

The article goes on to say:

Iger stressed how social media was far from a Gen X or Gen Y fad, but in fact a part of everyday life for children. He said the computer will soon supplant the television as children’s screen of choice. “In the years ahead, broadband on the computer will be the primary source of entertainment for kids,” he said. “It’s just as important to them as the TV set now.”

It bears repeating: from this point on, content needs to be distributed far and wide, and we need to develop the new models for metrics and monetization. The old ones just won’t work anymore.